


yet somehow much more dearly

by softhan



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode AU: s03e07 Digestivo, Fix-It, M/M, Sharing a Bed, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:56:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29724513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softhan/pseuds/softhan
Summary: What if, instead of tucking Will into bed and then keeping watch, Hannibal had just decided to crash beside him?
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 55
Kudos: 388





	yet somehow much more dearly

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a [post](https://fakeblondeabigailhobbs.tumblr.com/post/643254406745358336/i-think-digestivo-couldve-gone-a-lot-differently) by [fakeblondeabigailhobbs](http://fakeblondeabigailhobbs.tumblr.com) on tumblr: i think digestivo could’ve gone a lot differently if hannibal had just decided to crash beside will. like not even mustered the energy to watch over him after putting him to bed just straight up putting his head down beside will and Crashing.
> 
> title is from the song One by Sleeping At Last

Will wakes up slowly, and for a moment he thinks the last few months were some sort of strange dream-turned nightmare that his lonely mind forced upon him. He’s at home in his bed in Wolf Trap; he opens his eyes to see the familiar ceiling, lit by the gentle morning light, and he thinks perhaps this was a warning not to go looking for Hannibal after all. Not that it will stop him—every day since that horrible night has felt like an intolerable purgatory. He wants what they almost had. He wants closure for what Hannibal did to them. He’s still not sure which desire will win out when he actually sees him face-to-face.

He shifts his head, hoping to spend a little while lingering in bed before the dogs rouse him, and that’s when he realizes he isn’t alone. Well. Not a dream, then: that face-to-face has come a bit sooner than he’d been thinking after all.

Hannibal is still asleep, deeply so, face smooth and relaxed and terribly _vulnerable_ for a man who tried to saw Will’s head open not forty-eight hours before. His hair is a mess, longer than Will had ever seen it, falling in soft strands over his forehead and splaying out on the pillow, and his face is bloodied and bruised. He’s curled in on himself, like he was afraid of accidentally touching Will; he’s still got blood on his sleeve. Blood from all the people he murdered trying to save Will’s life, so he could bring him home and tuck him into bed.

Will doesn’t remember much of the rescue: One minute Cordell was cutting into the side of his face, the next he was gone. He can remember some strange noises, and then Hannibal wrapping him in something warm and carrying him outside. There’s a hazy memory of his head pillowed on Hannibal’s lap in the backseat of a car, but he’s not sure if that’s real. It seems unlikely enough that this moment is real, here and now, with Hannibal’s warmth dipping the mattress beside him and the smell of blood and sweat sharp in the air.

Now that he’s properly awake, Will is aware of all the places he aches. Between Chiyoh and Hannibal and Mason, it seems like every part of him has taken some kind of injury in the last few days, and the desire to just go back to sleep and worry about all of this later recedes as the pain settles in full force. He’s not sleeping again until he takes some kind of pain medication, and Hannibal is blocking his way out of bed.

Gingerly, being careful not to aggravate his bad shoulder, Will reaches over to brush the hair off of Hannibal’s forehead. Hannibal’s eyes flutter slowly open, and his lips curl up in a slight smile when he sees Will lying beside him. He reaches slowly out to cup the side of Will’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb, and Will closes his eyes and leans into it. He can’t help it: even after everything that’s just happened, Hannibal’s touch makes him feel grounded and safe.

“Don’t do this to me,” Will says, eyes still closed.

Hannibal draws his hand away, tucking it back against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Will opens his eyes and gazes clear and sharp at Hannibal’s face. “For how much?”

It’s Hannibal’s turn to close his eyes, turning his face into the pillow. “For every wrong that has pushed you away from me, no matter how necessary they may have seemed.”

Will turns his head so that he’s staring at the ceiling again and blinks hard, waits until he’s sure his voice won’t shake. “The teacup’s broken. It’s not going to gather itself together again. It can’t.”

Hannibal lets out a single quavering breath. “Parts of it can, if you allow them to.” He swallows. “If you allow me enough time, we can make it into something better, the cracks gilded with gold.”

“If you don’t dash it to the ground again at your earliest opportunity,” Will says, and then sighs. “How can you ask me for time, after everything you’ve done? How can you expect me to trust you?”

“I expect nothing,” Hannibal replies immediately. He rolls onto his back as well, and Will can see him tapping his fingers on his chest out of the corner of his eye. “I _can_ only ask.” When Will doesn’t respond, he sighs softly and continues, “I wanted to be free of you, at any cost. I see now that the very thing I hoped to rid myself of is the one price I could not bear to pay. If I must beg your forgiveness, then I shall beg; if begging will not do, then I am at your mercy.”

Will bites his lip, forces his teeth together hard enough to break skin, trying to focus himself on something outside the desperation underlying Hannibal’s words. He has to blink hard again several times; there are tears lurking nearby for both of them, far too close for comfort, and Will refuses to be the first to break. “I miss my dogs,” he says eventually. “I miss my life before I met you. I was happy with just them. Just this.”

“You can have that back, if you want it,” Hannibal offers, although his voice is very very quiet as he does. “Tell me to go, bring them home. I won’t bother you anymore.”

Will has to laugh at that, one sharp bark that’s far too loud in the still quiet of the room. “You won’t bother me. Wouldn’t that be nice.”

Hannibal shifts next to him, and his voice is nearly affronted. “You don’t believe I would go?”

“I don’t think it matters if you would or if you wouldn’t: you can’t do everything you’ve done to me and then just leave and expect me to be the same. How am I supposed to be content here alone with my dogs when you’ve spent years making me yearn for a child? How am I supposed to find happiness with someone else when I know what it’s like for someone to see me as you have?”

Hannibal is quiet for a moment. “I don’t understand what you want from me.” 

“I want to never have met you,” Will says bitterly.

Another long beat of silence, and then Hannibal rolls over and swings his legs out of bed to get up. Will twists after him, moving to grab the back of his shirt so quickly that it makes his bad shoulder scream in agony.

“Wait, come back. I didn’t say you should go.” He’d meant to, but that’s beside the point.

Hannibal freezes in place, halfway out of the bed. “I can’t turn back time for you,” he says. “I would if I could.”

“You’d turn back time for yourself.”

“No,” Hannibal says, and turns to look at Will. “I would not give up a moment of the time I’ve had with you voluntarily.”

“Why not?” Will demands. “What good has it done?”

“The same good it has done you, I think,” Hannibal says, guarded and careful. “And for the same reason you don’t wish to let me go.”

Will considers this. He is so tired, and in so much pain; he knows with as much certainty as he knows it’s a bad idea that if he closed his eyes and asked Hannibal to bring him some aspirin and let him rest, Hannibal would do exactly that, and would watch over him and keep him safe as he did so. It’s too easy to believe the Hannibal who says he’s sorry like this. It’s too hard to remember the Hannibal who sawed into his skull to eat his brain. 

Will pushes himself up, bones aching, and leans against the windowsill. Hannibal scoots back to join him, and they sit together for what feels like quite a long time. Hannibal’s hands fidget together in his lap, and Will watches them rather than look at Hannibal’s face, images flickering through his mind.

“Who drove the car?”

Hannibal’s hands still. “Chiyoh,” he says slowly. “I wasn’t certain that you’d remember.”

“I remember,” he says, because he does, now. Drifting in and out, head pillowed on Hannibal’s lap with the fingers of one of Hannibal’s hands twisted tightly in his hair while the other held a compress against Will’s cheek. He wants to ask why they brought him here, why he woke up tucked safe in bed with Hannibal beside him, but he’s not sure he could bear to hear the answer.

Instead he reaches out and carefully covers Hannibal’s hand with his own. Hannibal turns his hand to accommodate the gesture, twining his fingers through Will’s and holding on tight. 

Hannibal’s breath hitches, just slightly, and Will looks up at his face, not surprised to see his eyes glistening with tears. What does surprise him is his own impulse to reach up and wipe away the one that dares to fall, carefully brushing Hannibal’s cheek with his thumb.

Hannibal closes his eyes and turns his face into Will’s touch, and Will knows he can’t send him away. He gently tugs Hannibal towards him, and leans up to bring their lips together in a kiss.

It’s surprisingly gentle, for all the violence between them. Hannibal’s lips are soft, and he’s kissing Will like he’s afraid that if he pushes too hard he’ll shatter the illusion and Will will disappear. Will presses into it, nipping gently at Hannibal’s lower lip, and Hannibal lets out a soft gasp and then finally licks into his mouth, reopening Will's bloody lip. It’s fitting that there should be blood in this kiss, after everything. Gentle and soft isn’t really who they are. 

But they are both exhausted, and in a lot of pain. They break apart, panting slightly, and Hannibal meets Will’s eyes properly for the first time since they woke up together. 

“Come with me,” he says.

“Where else would I go?” Will replies, and then Hannibal kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! Comments are love <3
> 
> There’s also a post you can [reblog](https://queerhannibal.tumblr.com/post/644241639010893824/yet-somehow-much-more-dearly-softhan-hannibal) or [retweet](https://twitter.com/softwillgraham/status/1366269211136258048?s=21)


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